critical facultycrit-i-cal fac-ul-ty
A good working definition would be: The ability to mentally evaluate information, statements, or propositions, to determine if they are accurate, true, or likely.
dojodo-jo
A school for training in Japanese arts of self-defense, such as judo and karate.
On The Critical Faculty:“It is our only guarantee against delusion, deception, superstition, and misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly circumstances.” William Graham Sumner

EC President against UK referendum

"Sometimes I hear people saying that for Parliament to approve it would be by the back door.

Is that the respect some people show their Parliament, maybe the greatest Parliament in the world? I don't consider Parliament the back door”

We are talking about Tony Blair approving it not Parliament. If it is done without a referendum it is certainly by the ‘back door’, the British have not had to opportunity to express an opinion and the EU has very little impact on what party they voted for as there is not much difference.

And do we really respect Parliament? I suspect most of us could count the politicians in parliament we actually respect on the thumbs of two hands - So that would be no then.

He went on:

"Britain is the country that exported Parliamentary democracy to the world. Do the British people consider Parliament the backdoor?

"Do the British people who killed their king to protect the rights of Parliament consider it the back door? “

Is it the backdoor? Absolutely - and Jose, it was a civil war. It was a Puritan Parliament killed the King. Plenty were fighting for him, just less organised, less well equipped. What has that got to do with it anyway?

He went on to say leaders had to stand up to the sort of "ugly nationalism" that traded on "imaginary threats" such as the idea that the EU was becoming a super state.

Here he is again branding the desire to actually have a say in the matter as ‘ugly nationalism’ this time and urging the political elite to stand up against the democratic process and resist it.

No. The idea of the EU becoming a super state is completely ridiculous, how could we imagine it for a moment?